Roumania Past and Present eBook

(about 887), Peter (? A.D.), and Samuel (about
976 A.D.), are conspicuous. The first-named we
find at war, first with the Grecian Emperor Leo (893
A.D.), whom he defeated; then with the same ruler
and his allies the Ungri, under Arpad, their king.
Finding himself hard pressed, Simeon made peace with
Leo, and turned his arms against the Ungri, whom he
defeated with great bloodshed and drove out of his
territories. (To the Ungri and their career we shall
return presently.) These feuds continued for a long
period, and about 970 A.D. the Bulgarians crossed
the Balkans, but were beaten by the Greeks, whilst
two or three years afterwards the Greek emperor (or
rather one of them, for there were several pretenders
to the throne), John Zimisces (? 972), attacked Marcianopolis,
the Bulgarian capital, and took the king, Boris, prisoner.
Before the end of the century another Bulgarian king,
Simeon, had fought the Greeks with varying success,
but ultimately the Emperor Basilius II. (1014 A.D.)
completely annihilated the Bulgarian army, and annexed
the whole country as a province of the Greek Empire.
Thus ended the first rule of the Bulgarians.

[Footnote 113: Le Sage, Table 8.]

[Footnote 114: Gibbon, vol. vii. p. 104.]

[Footnote 115: This character is by some writers
given to the Wallachs or Roumanians, and Bonfinius
(Book IV.) says that their name is derived from certain
Greek words indicating their skill in archery.]

[Footnote 116: Roesler, p. 234 et seq.
It is necessary to add that Roesler derives much of
his information from Turkish sources. (Appendix, pp.
359-361.) According to one writer, Abu-Ali-Ahmed Ben
Omar Ibn-Dasta, the settled Bulgarians were
an agricultural people cultivating cereals, in whose
villages were mosques, elementary schools, &c.
Many, however, were heathens, who prostrated themselves
whenever they met an acquaintance.]

V.

Of all the tribes or hordes of the East who made the
devoted plains of the Danube their highway into Europe,
there were none who have earned a character so notorious
for rapine and cruelty as the Ungri, or Hungarians.
Their origin is doubtful in the extreme, but it is
probable that they were a Turanian race, and Roesler
has found them an aboriginal home in Ugria, a country
situated eastward of the Ural mountains and the river
Obi.[117] Their savage nature, which long survived
their advent into Europe, has been graphically described
by several writers. Roesler, who has carefully
studied their early history, says that they were mare-milking
nomads living in tents, that they ate the half-raw
meat of game or fish without knives. Mare’s
milk appears to have been what we may call their temperance
beverage; whilst stronger drinks were the blood of
wild animals or of their enemies on the field of battle;
and the hearts of the latter were considered a sovereign
remedy for diseases.[118] Our own Hallam, in describing